Review: Lamy Al-Star Charged Green

The new limited edition Lamy AL-Star in Charged Green is absolutely beautiful. It clearly is THE signature color for a Lamy pen for me. I’ve always favored the AL-Stars to the Safaris as well for the beautiful luster of the the anodized aluminum as well and the price increase for the aluminum is nominal for the added good looks. If you are a green aficionado then you will want to grab one of the Lamy AL-Stars in Charged Green this year while you can. It’s really a lovely addition to any pen collection and can be had in the fountain pen, rollerball or ballpoint model. I really get a kick out of the 80s springy look of the ballpoint if only I liked ballpoint pens.

I got the Charged Green model with the F nib, however, the Charged Green ink was as much of a letdown to me as last year’s Neon Lime. Sadly, both colors are too light to be used for much more than highlighting. I even swapped out the nib in the AL-Star from the F to an M to a 1.1mm in hopes that a wider nib might allow the Charged Green ink to be usable. Sadly, even when it dried, it was still too light and shaded too dramatically from super light to just-barely-legible to be usable.

n the end, I swapped out the Charged Green ink fro Diamine Meadow which was a close match to the pen and much darker so that I could use the smooth F nib.

In my swab comparisons, you can see that even Pilot Iroshizuku Chiku-Rin appears darker than either the Charged Green or the Neon Lime. Lamy keeps trying to make a good lime green. Maybe next year…?

Finally, I also included a comparison photo of the Neon Lime Safari and the Pilot Retro Pop in green so that it is clear the the the Lamy Charged Green Al-Star is definitely more of a yellow-y green. Its definitely a metallic guacamole green when compared to the other two pens.

All-in-all, I’m a big fan of the AL-Star in Charged Green but the ink is not what I’d hoped it would be. But, of course, as a fan of all things green, this pen color was made for me.

DISCLAIMER: This item was sent to me free of charge by Fontoplumo for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.

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The Neon Lime ink blends wonderfully with the Lamy Green ink – betting the Charged Green would also. The only issue is the ratios. It is so much fun playing with greens to get then, in the words of Goldilocks, “just right” 🙂 Granted, it would be nice if the new inks were usable straight out of the bottle. At least they can be put to good use given the lack of available yellows for customization.

You mentioned guacamole. I keep hearing wasabi. Foodies wanna know which restaurant to take the pen! Does the German pen speak Spanish or Japanese?

As far as their green ink being too light – it’s like Lamy doesn’t know that their pens write the lightest! If only they could hear my thought process. Every time I need to see what the lightest version of an ink is, I load it into a Safari. It would be logical for Lamy to make their inks darker than they need to be, since it’s going to come out of their writing instruments lighter, anyway.
But guacamole green! That is a great description. If I’d heard that before I bought it, I wouldn’t have had any color angst while waiting for it to arrive! 🙂 I know a lot of people weren’t thrilled with another yellow green edition, but I think they really nailed it with this pen color….practice makes perfect?

I’ve never been a big fan of these types of greens until lately. I’ve been considering the “Retro Metro” in green; it would go so well with my turquoise Retro Metro (that’s what I call the Pilot Pop Metropolitans). Now I’m thinking about the Charged Green All-Star; it is a really unusual color, and I love the aluminum finish. The aluminum plays off any color it’s used in.

I’m glad to see another aluminum Lamy and I’ll be happy if they come out with even more colors in this material. Just think – how about a turquoise All-Star? Wouldn’t that look great? (Have you guessed by now that turquoise is my favorite color?) I think I’d like an Aluminum Lamy in just about any color.

And I have to agree with you about the ink colors. While the lighter greens certainly go well with the Charged Green All-Star, they are absolutely too light to write very much with. I personally like the Iroshizuku Chiku-Rin, but even that is a pretty light color and wouldn’t provide very much contrast with any paper. So I’d probably have to go with a darker green like you did, as well. I might look for a darker shade of avocado. I have been getting a little tired of some of my usual colors, so I’m just about ready for something new, and this pen might be just the ticket.

Meanwhile, I’ll still be waiting for that turquoise All-Star that I can see in my mind’s eye.